Fly Casual
by Ruzinus
Summary: RotJ AU- What if the group hadn't been let past the shield to Endor? Find out here.


"I don't know, fly casual," Han Solo frustratedly told Chewbacca. The Star Destroyer was taking a long time to respond, had they gotten a false password? The entire Rebellion could be for naught if they failed. Had Luke been right? Was he endangering the mission?  
  
Suddenly a tractor beam caught hold of them, and they were pulled toward an opening docking bay of the Star Destroyer. "Not to worry," came a voice from the comm as it flickered on, "our sensors picked up problem with your engine. We're not able to identify just what the problem is, so just shut it down and we'll pull you in. We'll check it out and fix it so you can resume your duties."  
  
Han pushed down a button on the comm and replyed, "Alright, I'll shut off all power sources not needed for life support." He released the button and shut down the ship. Turning to the others, he asked, "Well, now what do we do?"  
  
Beyond him, Threepio gave a low moan, "We're doomed." and Artoo let out a sad twitter.  
  
"Well I don't believe that engine trouble story for a second," replied Leia. "But how did they figure out we weren't what we said we were? Did we get a bad password, or do we not match up with some delivery schedule?"  
  
"I told you," Luke explained calmly, "Vaders on that ship, and he can sense me."  
  
"Well then," said Han. "We're obviously toast as soon as they come in here. You said Vaders on here? I don't see how you know, but I'll just trust you on this one. If we're going down, let's see if we can take this hunk of junk with us. You know what to do Chewie."  
  
Chewie growled an affirmative. Leia just gaped at him. "You're crazy!"  
  
"Maybe so," said Luke, his voice still calm, "but he has a point." He permitted himself a thin smile, "Nice knowing you guys."  
  
The ship entered the Star Destroyer, and Chewie quickly gave power to the engines and punched the afterburners.  
  
---  
  
Threepio struggled out of off, he couldn't think straight. His processing circuits had to have been jarred. His memory circuits too, because he couldn't remember too much. Looking around, he tried to figure out where he was. Searching through his databanks he matched where he was with every place stored in his head, but couldnt find any results. He shook his head, and something must clicked into place, because his processing speed increased and his thoughts cleared, and he realized where he recognized this place from. It wasn't an exact match, but it was pretty close to the electrical work area he and Artoo had passed on the Death Star. What was he doing here?  
  
Whatever was bugging his memory circuits must have left his system, for it all suddenly came flooding back to him. Why had he come along on that awful mission to get down the shield? If he ever got out of this he would be sure to tell Artoo that he hadn't found it very pretty at all. Where was Artoo anyway? He had better be all right. "Artoo?" he called out softly, suddenly very worried for his best friend. A series of warbles and chirps came from behind him, and he quickly spun around.  
  
Or tried to, at any rate. A spark of resistance coursed through his electric body, and for the first time since coming to on, he looked down and studied himself. There were large tears haphazardly placed all around his body, some going right into bunches of wires, and half of the covering of his right arm was completey torn off. He was, in short a mess. Noticing he was seated on a pile of junk parts and loose wires, some possibly his own, he forced himself to his feet, and then turned to Artoo.  
  
The droid was standing by the wall, letting out a small stream of complaints about his predicament. Which was about all he could do with the type of restraining bolt stuck in him. Threepio went over to the smaller droid and removed the bolt, wondering why he hadn't been fit with one. They probably hadn't expected him to actually come out of off on his own. "Well," he asked Artoo, "just what happened? Why weren't we all destroyed by the impact?"  
  
Artoo however, had moved over to the wall and jacked into the Star Destroyers system. Threepio never did figure out how an astromech droid had become so good at hacking into complex enemy systems undetected, but he didn't really care. Artoo uploaded a security video of the shuttles entrance into the docking bay, and displayed it with his hologram projector.  
  
The ship was shown starting to enter the docking bay. It suddenly blasted forward, and hit the wall, tearing the wall, and much moreso itself, into shreds. Before it could go very far however, the tractor beam caught it again, pulled it out of the wall, and put it down, keeping a hold on it this time. The hologram flickered and another video was shown, this one showing various pieces of Threepio being pulled from the wreckage of the wall. Threepio wondered briefly why they had bothered to repair him, and decided that they were probably hoping to get some info about the Rebellion from him when they were done.  
  
"Artoo," he asked, "is there any information about General Solo and the squad?" Artoo beeped as he searched through the imperial records, and told him that the only information he could find was that there were fifteen prisoners put in detention hall B56 recently. That would account for General Solo, Sir Luke, Chewbacca, Leia, the ten members of the strike squad and... someone else? Oh well, there wasn't time to worry about it now. "Can you release them?" he asked Artoo. Artoo checked the system and warbled an affirmative, then set about doing it. As he finished there was a sudden hiss of opening airlocks from the door, and it started to open.  
  
---  
  
"Ugh, where am I?" Leia groaned as she finally opened her eyes.  
  
Luke looked at her. Leia, his sister... He was still a bit shocked by the sudden information, but it just seemed so right. He could almost sense her feelings, how else could it be explained? As she sat up, he answered "Detention Cell B56-7 of the Super Star Destroyer Executor."  
  
"Oh," she said as she looked around once. Then she said again "Oh.." and Luke could sort of feel the sudden shock as all the grogginess left her head and she remembered all that had happened, "..yea. "Heh," she chuckled, "guess I should be getting used to these things." But her chuckle fell flat, the situation was rather grave.  
  
Luke looked at her, and finally made up his mind. "Leia, what do you remember about your mother."  
  
"Well," she answered slowly, "not much. Just images, feelings, really, that's all."  
  
"Please," Luke said, looking into her eyes, "tell me what you know. I don't remember my mother at all."  
  
"Well," Leia answered again, still talking slowly, "she was beautiful. Very kind too, but... sad..." she stopped. After a pause she looked like she was about to ask him a question, but before she got a chance to, the door opened.  
  
---  
  
"Wouldja stop that already!?" Han yelled, rather irately, at Chewie. It had been an hour since they had been thrown into cell B56-8, and it was an hour that had been grinding on his nerves. About fifteen minutes after being tossed in Han could hear the door to B56-10, the next cell over, opened, and someone thrown in. It was just about the only sound he had heard until about five minutes ago, when Chewie started banging his fists against the door, which finally brought Han to one of his small explosions. "It's not like it's gonna open!" he continued. Of course, just as he said that, the door opened.  
  
---  
  
The Imperials had to be going down the drain. It was the only explanation he could think of. How else could he be in an imperial detention cell and still have his blaster? Under standard imperial procedure there was simply no way it could happen.  
  
Of course, they had managed to take his ship aboard. But then again, he had intended for that too happen. He must be going as crazy as the rest of the galaxy, actually trying to be taken aboard an Imperial ship. The bounty was rather high, and he was rather in need of money. But trying to assassinate a high imperial officer was rather ludicrous. But if he did pull it off, he would earn himself a lot of honor back on Rodia in doing so.  
  
Oh well. He was here now, and there was nothing left to do but follow his plan. It had been a rather weird path to get here though. He had been pulled aboard, which he had inspected. Once inside he had come out of ship, and an imperial officer questioned him while two others kept their guns trained on him.  
  
"What are you and what are you doing here?" asked the officer.  
  
"Sevdo Bavoo, I'm a bounty hunter," he had answered calmly. It of course, wasn't his real name.  
  
The officers lip distaste became even more apparent on his face. The only thing imperials liked less than aliens was bounty hunters. "Don't you know that no non-imperial ships are supposed to be in this sector, by order of the Emperor himself?"  
  
"Really now," he had answered quite rudely. It had the desired affect. The officer skipped the rest of the questions and went right to searching him. One of the imperials who had had gun trained on him stepped forward and took his coat. The officer went forward and started patting him down in search of a weapon.  
  
"We'll have to search your ship be-" the officer started, but was cut off by the sudden ring of an alarm, and an announcement for all officers to meet somewhere. The officer made an annoyed noise and shoved him in the direction of the imperial who had just searched his coat. "Lock him away somewhere until this is over."  
  
The imperial had taken him to this cell and shoved him in, he went willingly. A bit later he heard people being put in some of the cells near him. No one had come for him yet. The officer had patted him down, and had found a blaster in his pocket, which he removed. But he didn't get to his boots, and there was still one there.  
  
Suddenly, the door opened. He stepped out cautiously, and saw who people peering out of the other cells down the wholeway. They looked to be rebels, and there was also a wookie. Strange. Down the hall he saw an imperial at the control station turning around. "Duck!" he cried. All the rebels ducked back, he pulled out his blaster and with two quick shots got rid of the two imperials in the room, and with a couple more destroyed the surveillance equipment. But it still wouldn't take long for the imperials to figure out what happened. It looked like his lot had been cast with these people for him. Now he just had to do his job and get out of here.  
  
---  
  
Joe McKenzie's head hurt. Of course, he had been in the cargo hold of an imperial shuttle slamming into the wall of a Star Destroyer docking bay. It was not exactly an activity recomended by the Physician Admiral. The rest of the crew had escaped from the collapsing half of the ship, but there was no way they had escaped from the stormtroopers. Maybe if half of them hadn't been knocked unconscious  
  
But they had been. The situation was, all in all, quite hopeless. He flipped it over every which way in his head, but it he couldn't see any way past them all being imprisoned. The rest of the squad in the detention area, him in the rubble. He was lucky in that nothing crushed any of his body. The pieces of the ship more sort of encased him. Like a tomb.  
  
He left that line of thought, it didn't help much. He tried pushing away the rubble on top of him again, but again, it didn't work. He went back to thinking through the situation again, when noises started interrupting his thoughts. Someone was going through the rubble.  
  
---  
  
Just as Artoo finished opening up the doors to the cells, the door to the room they were in started to open. Artoo quickly pulled out of the coputer port, and Threepio shoved the restraining bolt back into Artoo and fell back onto the junk heap, his eyes darkened, apparently in off.  
  
The door opened and a man in an imperial tech uniform entered the room. He walked over to Artoo, eying him suspiciously. "Are you breaking into the ships computer?" When he got to Artoo he bent down and checked the restraining bolt, to find it securely in place. "Must have been an access terminal malfunction next door," he muttered, and quickly walked out of the room.  
  
Threepio's eyes lit up, he must have only turned them off, and he sat up. "I thought you were better at not attracting notice while hacking computers," he complained as he removed the restraining bolt from Artoo. Artoo just gave an indignant twitter and starting rolling towards the door. "Where are you going now?" Threepio demanded.  
  
Artoo ignored his question and gave an urgent twitter, "Come on, we've got to get out of here."  
  
"I don't think so. Remember what happened the last time I followed you?"  
  
Artoo continued rolling towards the door. "Ok, stay and let the imperials turn you to scrap."  
  
"This is all your fault." Threepio muttered as he gave up and followed Artoo.  
  
---  
  
Han stepped out of the cell cautiously. Others of his squad were looking out from their cells too, and even a Rodian from one. But no one was looking from B56-10, where he had heard someone thrown into earlier. He stepped over to it, and looked inside. No one was there. He suddenly heard a cry of "Duck!" that was thick with a Rodian accent. He stepped into the cell and spun around just in time to see a few blaster shots quickly and efficiently deal with the imperials and surveillance equipment at the control center.  
  
He turned back to look at the cell, and caught his breath at what he saw. "Guys... he called, you should come see this..." There was a hole in the middle of the floor of the cell. A hole that looked like it had been burned into the metal. It looked like someone had been in this cell. He kneeled down to inspect it, and risked touching it. His finger instinctively jerked back, it was still hot to the touch.  
  
"Uh uh, no way, I don't think so," came Leia's voice from behind him. For a moment, Han wondered what she meant, then he noticed what the hole led to. The garbage masher.  
  
"No," he said. "Someone was thrown in here. He must have gotten out by making this hole. The question is, how did he make it?"  
  
"Well, no ones down there now," Luke's voice added. Han looked down into the hole. Luke was right, there was no one in the garbage masher. How had whoever it was gotten out?  
  
"Oh well," he said as he stood up, "we don't have time to worry about it now." Out at the control center, the Rodian was searching the two imperial's bodies. Han stepped into the control center as the Rodian straightened and turned around, a blaster in each hand. Han's breath caught in his throat as he realized who this Rodian was.  
  
The Rodian walked up to Han and handed him one of the blasters. "Han Solo, heh. I guess I should be thanking you."  
  
"Yeah, thanks." Han said warily as he took this blaster. It was not exactly what he had been expecting to hear.  
  
The Rodian tossed the other blaster to one of the members of the squad who was in the control center before pulling another blaster out of his boot. He motioned to the whole squad with a, "C'mon, theres no time to waste, "as he headed toward the door.  
  
---  
  
"You will bring Skywalker to me, and we will turn him to the dark side." Emperor Palpatine's gravelly voice echoed in Darth Vader's head.  
  
"Yes," he replied before the connection was cut. He turned to an imperial officer next to him. "Lieutenant, have Skywalker brought to me, and prepare a shuttle to the Death Star."  
  
"Yes sir." The officer replied formally and quickly headed over to a computer terminal. After a few moments he said with a slightly shakey voice, "Sir, communications with detention block B56 appear to be down. Should I send a squad to investigate?"  
  
"Yes," Vader replied, his mechanical voice hiding any emotion he might have had. "I will go with them."  
  
"Yes sir," the lieutenant answered in a relieved voice. 


End file.
